My Notorious Life by Madame X - Softcover

A glorious, grotty version of Call the Midwife set in the backstreets of nineteenth-century New York and starring a rambunctious heroine called Axie Muldoon, My Notorious Life is an angry, colourful page-turner ... Vividly weaving together stories about life, birth, death, love and family, Kate Manning conveys the terrible choices faced by the pregnant women who sought out Axie. Fiery, indomitable Axie herself is a wonderful, memorable character struggling to reunite her family and do her best for the women who need her * Metro * Not just a splendidly page-turning story of an angry orphan clawing her way up in the world, but a gripping docu-drama about women's business (in several senses) in nineteenth-century America. My Notorious Life gives midwifery its full dues: the glories and the miseries, the feminism and the money, the literally bloody ethical dilemmas. Unflinchingly memorable * Emma Donoghue, author of Room * Manning's sophisticated, intelligent novel is brought to life by the vivid voice in which her central character tells her own story * Sunday Times * Both riveting and morally intriguing * Stylist * A gripping tale told in a fiery, compelling voice * Elle Magazine * This captivating novel draws you into one woman's desperate struggle to make her mark in a man's world * Psychologies * An evocative, riveting read * Good Housekeeping * My Notorious Life is wonderful fun. The wit and verve of its unsinkable heroine make this novel a delight to read, even in its most harrowing passages. Beyond that, it's a book that matters-now more than ever. Faithfully true to the time of its setting, it is also extremely relevant to ours * Madison Smartt Bell, author of All Souls' Rising * The lively, compelling, irreverent voice of Axie springs off the page and keeps the book readable to the end * The List * Evocative ... An epic tale, much like Barbara Taylor Bradford tome, where fortune truly favours the brave girl. A remarkable page turner * Yorkshire Post * Manning's sophisticated, intelligent novel is brought to life by the vivid voice in which her central character tells her own story * Sunday Times Ireland * The details are impeccably researched ... This is a novel that resurrects an important slice of social history * Independent *

`In the end, they celebrated. They bragged. They got me finally, was their feeling. They said I would take my secrets to the grave. They should be so lucky.' Axie Muldoon, the headstrong daughter of Irish immigrants, forced to beg for pennies as a child on the brutal streets on New York City, grows up to become the most successful - and controversial - midwife of her time. `Saved' from poverty by a well-meaning philanthropist, Axie is sent West with her younger brother and sister. But the kindness of strangers is short-lived and soon Axie returns to the city of her birth, alone, but determined to one day reunite her family. When she is taken in by a Manhattan doctor Axie learns the craft that she will live by - and later fight for. She rises from the gutter to the glitter of Fifth Avenue high society, and discovers that the right way is not always the way of the church or the law, and that you should never trust a man who says `trust me.' But what if that man is an irresistible risk-taker with a poetical Irish soul? As Axie's reputation grows she finds herself on a collision course with the crusading official who would be the righteous instrument of her downfall. It will take all of her power to outwit him and save both herself and those she loves from ruin.